


Fealty

by BlueRaith



Series: Sanvers AU Collection [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Because history can sometimes suck, Except remixed, F/F, Historical AU, Inquisitor Alex Danvers, Sergeant Maggie Sawyer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRaith/pseuds/BlueRaith
Summary: Inquisitor Alex Danvers is tracking known alien sympathizer and traitor, Sergeant Maggie Sawyer. Protecting her sister has always been her top priority, but when Maggie provides an alternative, Alex must make a choice between loyalty to her country or to her ethics.





	Fealty

Alex shuffled through the papers on the desk in front of her. Where was it? She knew it had to be here. The information the Inquisitors had was accurate. It always was. If it wasn’t here, it had to have been moved.

Or it was on the recipient’s person.

“Hey! What are you doing in here? Who are you?”

Well, at least Alex wouldn’t have to track her anymore….

Her target was much smaller than Alex would have expected. Especially for a city guard. Her armor almost looked too big for her, and Alex half-wondered how on earth Sergeant Sawyer lifted her sword.

Only half. From every scrap of information Alex had been able to gather, Sawyer was much more formidable than she appeared.

She was also reportedly far more intelligent than the average guardsman. Once Sawyer took in Alex’s Inquisitor armor, her eyes widened and she sprinted from the room.

Apparently the rumors of her intelligence was true.

Alex took off after her, dodging knocked over tables, chairs, and various objects Sawyer threw at her as she tried her best to escape.

She wouldn’t.

Alex was the best at what she did.

It wasn’t long before Sawyer realized that she wasn’t going to be losing Alex so easily. It wasn’t often that Alex’s targets surprised her, but this one did. Without any hesitation, Sawyer jumped bodily through the nearest window of the barracks.

They were on the third story.

For a moment, Alex feared the sergeant had just taken her own life to avoid questioning by the Order. It was sometimes the case for those who had no desire to disappear into thin air. But, Alex needed answers for her investigation, and she was never going to get them if Sawyer had just done what Alex feared she had.

But, once Alex ran to the window and peered out herself, she could make out the slightly bulky form of Sawyer tumbling down a sturdy rooftop. She was able to catch a grip before she went careening over the edge, but it was a close thing.

Alex rolled her eyes. If Sawyer really thought she could get away like this, she was going to be in for a rude surprise.

She vaulted over the window sill easily, Alex’s Inquisitor armor was much lighter and allowed for far greater freedom of movement than Sawyer’s plate. It was only a matter of time.

Jumping, vaulting, and scaling over roofs, Sawyer led Alex on an ill advised chase through the city. Alex quickly gained ground on the fleeing guard, her bulky armor slowing her down significantly.

“Give it up, Sawyer,” Alex called out. “I just want ask some questions!”

Sawyer scoffed breathlessly. “Right. Just… just like… you did with all those… aliens.”

She reached up to her chest plate and started to ditch her armor as she ran. Dammit. Alex put on some more speed. She really didn’t want to wear herself out when Sawyer inevitably stopped. People had a tendency to fight viciously when cornered.

It didn’t take long. Sawyer was tenacious, but she wasn’t nearly as graceful. She tripped on a loose shingle and went down. Hard.

Alex carefully sidestepped said shingle and glibly scaled down to the ground, and fortunately found Sawyer in a dank alleyway, favoring her shoulder.

“Running only made me irritated,” Alex informed her with a harsh smirk.

Sawyer rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sure to regret it when you torture me  _ extra  _ slowly.”

“That’s a lot of talk for someone who betrayed their crown and country,” Alex ground out, not liking how blase this woman was taking all this.

Then again, she  _ was  _ a traitor, so maybe Alex shouldn’t be so surprised.

“Frame it however you want,” Sawyer shot back. “I know I did the right thing and I don’t regret it. You’re hunting down  _ people,  _ Inquisitor. How well do you sleep at night?”

Sawyer tilted her head to the side as she stared right into Alex’s eyes.

She tried not to show how much the sergeant was annoying her. Alex slept just fine. She did all of this for a reason, and she had her orders. Bring aliens in. That was it. Alex didn’t know what happened to them after that, but so long as she could keep an ear to the ground and ensure the Inquisition never heard a peep about Kara’s existence, she would do  _ anything. _

Alex broke eye contact with Sawyer, noting a small slip of parchment in her undercoat. Deftly, she plucked it from Sawyer and gave it look. Just as she suspected, it was a note written in an alphabet that was decidedly not from this earth.

“People who set fire to villages with their thoughts. People who can pick up horse carriages and throw them. People who would like to see us under foot as they take over  _ our  _ lands,” Alex responded calmly. “I’ve never met an innocent alien.”

That was a lie.

Alex knew of  _ one. _

Sawyer shook her head. “Great work. Really. Awe inspiring. The Inquisitors can’t drum up a few aliens just living like normal, ordinary people. I stumbled on a ton of them by  _ accident.  _ Nice to see what kind of waste the crown in spending our coffers on.”

This woman was beautiful—and Alex wasn’t entirely sure why she was thinking of her target this way—but she was also infuriating. Without another word, Alex clapped irons on her wrists.

If they were a little too tight, Sawyer gave no indication. She just continued glaring at Alex. Oddly seeming…  _ disappointed  _ in her. Which was ridiculous. Sawyer didn’t have a single leg to stand on here. The law was clear. Aiding and abetting aliens could result in her execution and as a guardsman, she was perfectly aware of that fact. There was no excuse, and Alex didn’t feel sorry for her.

Nope, not one bit.

***

This was easily one of the most boring, yet terrifying experiences of Maggie’s life. Sure, she put up a brave front, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d been captured by an  _ inquisitor.  _ Over the very true suspicion that she helped aliens hide in plain sight. Unless her ace in the hole showed up in the next ten minutes or so, Inquisitor Danvers—a very beautiful and tragically speci-est hard ass—would come in here and….

Maggie wasn’t sure, actually. All she knew was that people went into the Inquisition prison, and they never came out. Whether people were killed here, sent off to who knows where, or something else even more nefarious was done to them, she didn’t know.

And now she was going to find out.

The heavy door to her cell opened ominiously, and Danvers herself strolled in as though she had not a care in the world.

“What’s up first, Inquisitor?” Maggie drawled out. She wasn’t going to allow this woman to smell blood. “Gonna pull my fingernails off?”

Danvers rolled her eyes and stood before Maggie—who was currently shackled to the wall.

“Contrary to popular belief, Sergeant, we don’t actually torture people. Torture only makes prisoners tell us what they  _ think  _ we want to hear. It’s far more effective to interrogate someone the old fashioned way. So, why don’t you tell me where you’re hiding them, and you’ll only get… three to five years?” Danvers told her almost off handedly.

“And after that?” Maggie demanded. “I don’t know about you, but  _ I’ve  _ never met someone who’s been released from your little clubhouse.”

“You really think Queen Lillian just allows traitors back into the city?” Danvers rolled her eyes. “No, Sawyer, you’re going to be exiled after whatever prison sentence you serve. That, or if you’re  _ really  _ stubborn about this, she’ll send you to work in the iron mines. Trust me, that’s not a pretty place.”

Maggie kept her mouth clamped shut. Prison sounded like it was gonna suck, never mind the iron mines, but it probably beat the death waiting for whatever aliens she might give up to Danvers if the Inquisitor got her way.

“Is that how this is going to be? We’re going to be here for a  _ very  _ long time, Sawyer,” Danvers said with a smirk as she crossed her arms. “Wrists hurting? Might have to get used to it at this rate.”

There was no way Maggie was going to give this woman any satisfaction whatsoever. A little pain—okay, it hurt like hell to be shackled to a wall like this—but it was a small price to pay for Maggie to stand by what she believed in.

Speaking of which….

“What’s your story, Danvers? How’d you end up joining one of the most despotic, cruel, and secretive clubs in the kingdom?  _ Why’d  _ you sign up?” Maggie asked. She could admit she was curious. Danvers was obviously very intelligent, and Maggie couldn’t deny that she was beautiful. It all seemed to be wasted away here in this hell hole.

Danvers’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not in any position to be asking questions, sergeant,” she said coolly.

Maggie went to shrug, but immediately regretted that choice when her shoulders cried out in agony. “You  _ said  _ we were going to be here for awhile. Let’s build some rapport. Get a relationship of sorts going. Gain some trust.”

Unfortunately, the inquisitor only snorted. “You’re pretending like you have  _ any  _ power at all here. I hold all the cards, Sawyer. I decide what sort of miserable life you’re going to have from here on out. I  _ would  _ recommend that you avoid annoying me.”

“See, but I have all the information you want, Danvers,” Maggie pointed out with a grin. “I don’t have family. Barely have any friends. There’s no one waiting for me out there, and I have no one to worry about in here. I can stay here  _ forever  _ if need be. So far, it’s better than working at an iron mine or traversing the wilderness in exile. Somewhat warm. I assume I’m going to be fed. Living the life. Why should I spill whatever secrets I  _ may  _ have?”

Alex sighed. “If that’s the case, the crown will just execute you. Publicly. You have a time limit here, Sawyer. It’s in your best interest to just tell me what I want to know. Believe me.”

“What about everyone else? It wouldn’t be in their best interest,” Maggie pointed out stubbornly. “I didn’t sign up to be a guard for the personal benefits. The pay’s kind of terrible.”

Before Danvers could respond, the cell door creaked open again. Another, older, Inquisitor walked into the room. One Maggie knew, but she did her best to keep the recognition off of her face as best she could.

“Inquisitor Danvers,” he greeted his counterpart in a deep voice. “I’ll take it from here.”

Danvers’s eyes widened. “Sir, I have this interrogation under control,” she protested.

He nodded, but didn’t seem moved all the same. “I’m certain of that, but we have more leads you can track down in the city. Get with Inquisitor Vasquez.”

Maggie watched them stare each other down before Danvers gave a  _ very  _ unhappy huff and stormed from the room. Maggie relaxed once she was gone. However, she  _ did  _ feel oddly disappointed that Danvers was gone. It was a weird feeling. She was glad her interrogation and potential imprisonment was on hold, but there was something about winding up Inquisitor Danvers that was oddly appealing.

“Sawyer.”

“J’onn. Took you long enough,” Maggie greeted with a crooked smile.

He stared her down placidly. “How did you get caught?”

Maggie  _ wanted  _ to shrug, but she remembered that her shoulders would only end up hating her for it. “Danvers is pretty good at her job, I’m guessing. As far as  _ I  _ know, I was careful.”

J’onn nodded, as if acknowledging that Danvers’s talent at tracking down sentient beings was a mere statement of fact. “Alex was trained by the best. Unfortunately, being assigned to your case meant that it was only a matter of time before you were brought in.”

That just sounded  _ great. _

“Okay… so does that mean I’m pretty much doomed?” Maggie asked evenly, but the apprehension was  _ definitely  _ out in full force.

Thankfully, J’onn shook his head. “No. I’m releasing you. Under the guise of you leading Danvers straight to some aliens.”

For a moment, Maggie thought J’onn was joking. Not that she’s ever personally heard him do so. She’d heard rumors that he had a very biting sense of humor, but so far it hadn’t shown itself to her. But the way he stared her down let Maggie know that J’onn was very serious.

“Wait. You want me to do  _ what?”  _ Maggie asked. “Um… okay, am I missing something? You know, like the fact that Danvers is all over the mission to ‘rid the lands of the demonic blight’?”

But J’onn only shook his head. “She isn’t. Not really. If we can turn Inquisitor Danvers to our cause, we’d gain a  _ significant  _ asset. Not only that, I also don’t enjoy seeing her so manipulated by the queen’s propaganda. She’s something of a protege of mine.”

“You want me to risk a bunch of innocent people over a  _ friendship,”  _ Maggie pressed. She wasn’t at all sold on this plan.

J’onn’s eyes turned red as he tapped his temple. “You forget, sergeant, that I do have a good idea of what anyone is thinking at any given time. It’s not hard to predict what someone will do once you can hear their very thoughts.”

Maggie shook her head. “This is a needless gamble.”

“It’s a vital move on our part. Inquisitor Danvers will be the next head of the Inquisition in time. No other comes close to her talent and work ethic. Working for us, she can turn this Inquisition completely around from the inside far more effectively than I could ever hope to do,” J’onn argued.

“What if you’re wrong,” Maggie challenged. “All this risk for  _ one  _ person.”

“She can bring the kryptonian from hiding.”

_ That  _ got Maggie’s eyes to widen. The rumored kryptonian. Or the  _ other  _ one, at least. There was a male kryptonian making a lot of trouble for Prince Lex off in the Luthor’s other land holdings. But the second one was almost a legend at this point. Apparently coming out to help the occasional hapless citizen in a disastrous situation and then disappearing like mist in the sun once the guard tried to show up to the scene. Let alone the Inquisitors.

_ “Danvers  _ knows where the kryptonian is?! Why wouldn’t that come up in her job? Hell, why wouldn’t she give them up?” Maggie asked, completely shocked.

“Because Alex Danvers is more nuanced than you give her credit for. I won’t go into details of her personal life. Suffice to say, she has her reasons for joining the Inquisition, and they’re entirely personal. She doesn’t particularly believe in Queen Lillian’s anti-alien policy. Show her who these people truly are, Sergeant. She knows the kryptonian as a  _ person.  _ And has never met another alien to show her the kindness, familiarity, and what goes for humanity for the various species in our galaxy since joining. You can prove her wrong.”

Maggie still wasn’t entirely sold on this plan. It was a huge risk, and while the return  _ could  _ be worth it, it was also gambling the lives of people who only wanted to live normal lives in the face of tyranny. Maggie’s entire goal has been the  _ opposite  _ of exposing them to an Inquisitor.

“If you’re wrong about this, I hope you know that I’m going to do my  _ best  _ to keep her from turning anyone in. Even if that means killing her,” Maggie warned. “I’m not about to throw them to the wolves because you  _ think  _ Danvers might be a much better person than she acts. Because I’m not entirely sold.”

She looked pointedly at the shackles that had her pinned to the wall.

J’onn gave a firm nod. “I understand. I don’t believe it will come to that.”

“Right. Because she’s your pet project. I hope you can keep a level head with this, because if I fail to stop her, it’s up to you to keep her from selling us all out. The Resistance will completely collapse if anyone ever realizes you’ve infiltrated the Inquisition. Questions will be asked, investigations launched. It might just find its way all the way back to  _ her.  _ I don’t have to tell you what would happen if she was discovered.”

He gave her another single nod and left the room.

God, Maggie wasn’t at all certain of this plan. But the Resistance had stalled. They needed an ace in the hole. J’onn had a point in that the reward for this going well could just be that push they needed to overthrow Lillian.

She only hoped that Danvers wouldn’t disappoint.

***

“What do you mean we  _ released her?!”  _ Alex demanded furiously.

John only stared her down.

“Exactly what I just told you.”

She gaped at him. This had to be the  _ last  _ thing Alex could have expected to have come out John’s interrogation. Why would he release a known alien conspirator? It couldn’t get more cut and dried with a case like Sawyer’s.

“The sergeant has proven herself to be more headstrong than we have given her credit for. Interrogation will get us nothing.  _ Trailing  _ her, on the other hand will provide much better results,” J’onn told her.

Alex paced the small office in frustration. She didn’t want to do anymore trailing. She’d tracked down Sawyer through  _ weeks  _ of spying, trailing, stealing documents, and interrogation. Sawyer was deep into whatever conspiracy was happening in the capital, and she was  _ this close  _ to getting some answers.

And John wanted to go back to the status quo.

“We  _ had  _ her, John,” Alex argued through gritted teeth. “We’d barely had her in custody for  _ a single day,  _ and you let her go?!”

“It’s done, Inquisitor Danvers. If you can’t get results, tell me now, and I can assign another inquisitor to this case,” John told her with a pointed look.

That was a low blow, and Alex  _ glared  _ at John to show her displeasure. This was easily the worst plan John has ever come up with—which was  _ highly  _ unusual—but Alex would work with what she had. She was the best at what she did, and she wasn’t going to allow someone else to come along and screw up months worth of work.

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Alex said forcefully. “I’ll get the job done.”

He nodded at her in obvious dismissal, and Alex  _ fumed  _ through the Inquisition stronghold. This was just ridiculous. What more could they have gotten  _ releasing  _ Sawyer to continue her traitorous activities that they couldn’t do under an interrogation? Alex had only been speaking with her for less than an  _ hour. _

She had the feeling that something odd was going on. Unfortunately, there was little that Alex could do about her suspicions right now. John might have orders from the top, he might have his own reason for letting Sawyer go. It didn’t matter. Alex  _ did  _ trust him. She just wished she could know what was  _ actually  _ going on.

And so restarted Alex’s mission to find Maggie Sawyer. Something she already did before, and succeeded at.

Alex had the sneaking suspicion that her bitterness at this ‘plan’ wasn’t going to fade anytime soon.

A few discreet inquiries with her contacts at the guard barracks let Alex know that Sawyer hadn’t returned there. Smart of her. She also didn’t turn up at any of the known residences her few friends, girlfriends, and contacts. Alex was going to be  _ very  _ upset if it turned out Sawyer just disappeared into thin air. She might just have decided to leave the capital altogether, which would have been the smartest thing for her to do.

By the time Alex had spent two days combing the city for the elusive sergeant, she was at her wits end, frustrated, and just about ready to murder John with her bare hands. She was glowering at a small creek and leaned against a bridge railing when her luck abruptly turned.

“You look down, Danvers,” a voice, no  _ the  _ voice, said from behind her.

Alex practically  _ whipped  _ herself around to face the annoyingly smirking face of Maggie Sawyer. Traitor. Known alien sympathizer. Oddly attractive in her clearly oversized cloak. The thing practically swallowed her.

_ “Sawyer,”  _ Alex growled out.

Sawyer held her hands out placatingly. “Whoa, calm it down there, Danvers. I’m not here to run away.”

“You’re turning yourself in?” Alex asked, completely caught off guard.

But Sawyer snorted at the question. “Hardly. No, I’m here to show you what you’ve been missing.”

Missing? Alex had no inkling what ludicrous idea Sawyer was holding in her head, but she wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass by. Orders or not, Alex was bringing her back in. This whole plan was insane in the first place. She reached for her iron shackles, but Sawyer easily spotted what she was going for and sauntered away from her.

“Not gonna be that easy this time, Danvers. If you want to bring me in, you’re going to have to play along. Besides, if I  _ don’t  _ end up introducing you to your humanity today, you’ll have much bigger prizes to take in.”

Alex frowned. This was… a left turn into the bizarre. Just two days ago, Sawyer was willing to risk execution to protect the aliens she hid from the crown. And now she wanted to lead Alex right to them. Something was up. If this  _ wasn’t  _ a trap, Alex would be pretty damned surprised.

“Or… you’re leading me into a trap to capture  _ me,”  _ Alex countered. “I’m not stupid, Sawyer.”

Sawyer cocked her head to the side. “No. You’re misguided, probably  _ slightly  _ evil to go with our illustrious queen’s orders, or just purposefully ignorant if not.” She shrugged. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Danvers. You  _ could  _ bring me in again. Or you could follow me and possibly make the biggest bust of your career.  _ Or,  _ you could even realize your whole operation is corrupt.”

For a moment, Alex wasn’t sure how she wanted to proceed. This was  _ most likely  _ a trap. But what Sawyer was referring to was the  _ Resistance.  _ Something the Inquisitors were also tasked with dismantling. However, unlike aliens, it was much harder to pull out those traitors to people who were decidedly and obviously not human. The Resistance investigation had stalled a few months ago, and the queen was growing restless with the lack of arrests.

This could be the break the Inquisition needed to bring stability to the entire country.

“You’ve got my attention, Sawyer,” Alex said with a wolfish grin.

“Great,” Maggie said sarcastically. “Seeing as I’m not excited at the thought of getting captured again, I want your shackles.”

“No.”

“That’s not how this works, Danvers. You play by the rules, and you get something from it. Either that, or I just leave you here on this bridge. I  _ could  _ ask you to hand over your weapons too.”

Alex crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I think you’re forgetting how I ran you down and captured you  _ last time,  _ Sawyer.”

“Lucky break. The shingle brought me down.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sawyer huffed. “This isn’t hard, Danvers. Give me something to work with here.”

“Why?” Alex demanded. “Why even offer this deal in the first place? What’s in this for you? You didn’t want to give up those aliens before, why now? What’s changed?”

“Civil war’s on the horizon,” Sawyer said after a beat of silence. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to see that happen. We  _ can  _ prevent it.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “How? A coup, I’m guessing? You want me to commit  _ treason?”  _ She scoffed at the thought.

Sawyer gave her a thoughtful look. As though she was trying to see right through Alex. Alex wasn’t a fan.

“This is the part I  _ don’t  _ get,” Sawyer said as she gestured at Alex’s entire body.

“What part?” Alex asked in a near snarl.

“The part where you  _ insist  _ on loyalty to the  _ one  _ person out to destroy the only alien you actually care about.”

Alex froze.

How did she know? Where did she hear about Kara? Alex was  _ positive  _ she hadn’t slipped up. That  _ absolutely no one  _ had ever gotten an inkling of Kara’s superpowers. How many conversations had she had with her sister telling her  _ exactly  _ why she should keep hidden? Why she should just pretend to be an ordinary human?

If Sawyer knew about her, how many others did?

“I just haven’t figured out the connection,” Sawyer muttered to herself. “Is she your lover? Friend?”

_ Sister. _

In a burst of speed that half surprised even Alex herself, she grabbed Sawyer by her ridiculous cloak, spun her around, and  _ slammed  _ her into the railing.

Sawyer’s breath exploded from her body. It sounded painful. Alex didn’t care.

_ “Where did you hear about her?”  _ Alex hissed out.

“Rumors,” Sawyer grunted out. “S...seeing her in the corner of my eye. Kr—kryptonian. The other one. She comes out… to help people. And then… disappears.”

Alex saw red.

“I’m going to  _ kill her,”  _ she did snarl this time, and released Sawyer to pace the small bridge like an enraged lioness. “I’ve  _ told her.” _

“Told her what?” Sawyer asked placidly. “That there are people out there who’d kill her before even getting to know her? People like  _ you?  _ Does she know what you do, or have you both been lying to each other?”

The questions hit far too close to home, and Alex wasn’t in the least bit prepared for them. This was a  _ crisis.  _ Kara was known. There was no telling to whom or to how many people, but once that secret was out, there would be  _ no  _ going back. People would talk, it would spread, and soon the Inquisition would hear about the  _ second  _ last child of Krypton. All those promises to Kara, to keep her safe, to give her a life, it was all about to be ruined.

All because her sister was too naive for her own damn good.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex said quietly as she bottled up her rage. “You don’t know what she’s lost. You don’t know what she’s gone through.”

Sawyer shook her head. “I know enough. I know Krypton is dead. I know she’s the last of her kind. And I know she’s not the only alien to have gone through that kind of loss. I’m not minimizing it. Losing your whole  _ world?  _ I can’t even comprehend that. But Danvers, there are other aliens who have gone through either that exact same thing, or something similar to it. These people wouldn’t  _ be here  _ on our world, one that’s probably way less civilized than the places they came from, if everything was fine. Come on. Even you can’t be this closed minded. I don’t know if you got so caught up in protecting your alien that you stopped thinking about what all the other ones have gone through, but we can  _ stop it.  _ Who’s leading the Inquisition? Who’s  _ made you  _ go out and hunt down aliens? There’s only one person in the kingdom who has endangered her, Danvers.”

Alex could feel a white hot rage simmering in her chest. As much as she’s tried to ignore it, as much as she’s hidden from the main problem—convinced as she was that  _ she  _ couldn’t just change the law simply because she wanted to—Alex knew she was hiding from what was really going on. She wanted Kara safe, and by God, that’s what was going to happen.

“Show me,” Alex finally said, turning to face Sawyer head on. “Prove it to me, and we’ll see what your resistance has to offer.”

Sawyer held out her hand with a raised eyebrow.

This day was just…  _ not at all  _ what Alex was expecting. She was so off kilter, that she couldn’t figure out what Sawyer wanted for a moment. Did she want to hold Alex’s hand? That… that didn’t seem necessary. And the thought made Alex’s very thoughts flee from her head enmasse.

She ended up staring awkwardly at Sawyer’s outstretched hand.

“Your irons, Danvers,” Sawyer said insistently and shook her hand for emphasis.

Irons. Right. Those. The things Sawyer had asked for originally. Alex could feel her face flush over her mistake, and even more humiliating, Sawyer seemed to spot her fluster as she grinned.

“You’ll get them back, Inquisitor. Eventually. Also, you might want to ditch the cloak. Where we’re going, folks are gonna be  _ a lot  _ more unwelcoming towards that dragon emblem than even you’re used to,” Sawyer said and pointed at the crest on Alex’s armor.

Alex looked down and took the emblem in for a moment. It wasn’t something she really reflected over often, but the image of a dragon being slain through the heart with a sword was probably indicative of what she’s been doing this entire time. Hunting and killing monsters. Alex didn’t really kill aliens often—only when they gave her no other choice—but it wasn’t as though she could completely separate herself from the executions or imprisonment of the aliens she was sent to capture.

Kara wasn’t a monster. Perhaps Sawyer had a point, and the others weren’t the sort of nightmares from legends that Alex had been groomed to believe them all to be.

With a deep breath, Alex placed the irons in Sawyer’s hand.

“If this is a trap, I’ll find some way to kill you myself,” Alex warned tightly.

“Wouldn’t expect anything different.”

Sawyer’s smile was wide, and it popped the dimples that had apparently been hiding on her face the entire time. Alex blinked at them, she’d never seen anything like it. They were… distracting. But they were soon gone, as Sawyer turned away and began to lead Alex towards….

She didn’t know. Nothing about any of this was certain. She’d started out with one goal. Protect Kara. If that protection was compromised… Alex had to find another way.

Even if that way came at the cost of working with traitors and irritating former guardsmen.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the missed opportunities in the show, in my opinion, is not exploring the very obvious and—what I thought was, anyway—potentially extremely compelling differences of ethics between Maggie and Alex. Maggie, a very law abiding, good cop—despite the hard front she puts up. And Alex, someone willing to beat the shit out of a prisoner in order to find her father's whereabouts. I love Alex's dorky side, I write about it and her sad side most often lately, but what I find to be most interesting about her character is how she offsets all of that with her ruthless side. Alex has *a* point she won't cross, judging by her last conversation with Jeremiah, but it's well and away from the morals of Kara by a long shot and Maggie's own ethics sadly didn't get a chance to compete with hers....
> 
> Yeah, so, this is only a part of the plot I had actually outlined. Turns out this AU was a little more compelling than I thought it would be what with all the world building I set up for it. I was like... 'huh, we're never gonna get through this compilation series if I try to get into a coup....' I might return to any of these later on, but I haven't decided.
> 
> But yeah, this is, admittedly, only loosely based on anything that happened in history. I mean, I included aliens. :D


End file.
